Difference between revisions of "Discussions/TwoSorceryQuestions"

Revision as of 17:08, 26 May 2006

I had some thoughts on a pair of Sorcery spells. By the way, I'm just wanting to get your opinion - I know that if my GM says that Creation is a giant cookie I should jusk ask if it is oatmeal raisin or choclate chip.

• Incomparable Body Arsenal, from Exalted Core Rules. This spell changes the caster into a automaton of "rust-streaked black iron". Would this count as cold iron for fighting Raksha?

• Elemental Empowerment Technique, from the two sorcery books. I know that Savant and Sorcerer has the ritual requiring an elemental of the element you want to use for the enchantment, but in Exalted: The Outcaste, we have the spell being used regularly by Lookshy, even for thinks like cookpots. Do they have a huge army of elementals used to manufacture these things? This is important, as only Lookshy's advanced Sorceror-Exorcists use summoning spells. Am I missing something here? Could the elementally aspected Dragonbloods themselves fill the role of the elemental spirit?

--OmegaPaladin

Cold Iron is inferior for weapon purposes to other forms of Iron, so I expect you'd have to make a custom version of the spell that turned you into cold iron. --JohnBiles

I know that it says that most weapons are made from steel as opposed to iron, but steel and iron are different things. Steel is a flexible and tough alloy of iron and carbon - in fact, most blacksmithing involves some level of changing iron to steel. However, Cold Iron is never really defined in Exalted, at least as far as I know. Is there a penalty for using a cold iron sword vs. a steel sword? --OmegaPaladin

John's very much correct that cold iron (iron that has never been forged, AFAIK) is inferior to forged metal in almost every way. Weaker, more prone to breakage, and generally excruciatingly difficult to form. Thus, if you were to build an automaton out of iron, with rivets, seams, etc, you'd do it out of non-cold iron. Sorry! As for the second one, I believe that you don't actually hurt the elemental in the ritual, and can probably get away with a small one, such as the tiny-god equivalent. Thus, having a fire is good enough, as within that fire is a tiny fire-elemental that you're going to use. Then again, that's just the way we've always done it. -- GreenLantern

The elemental used must have at least essence 3, and be of the appropriate elements, however. So It's not that tiny. - Molikai

Cold Iron, or as it is more expandedly termed, Cold-Forged Iron, is iron that is hammered and shaped without being heated or melted. It made it better for use than wrought iron, which was the other middle-ages choice, but would be much weaker than cast iron, which you might find in Exalted.

Reference page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_iron Unless Exalted has changed the description, and I doubt it has, that should remain standard for what it does; most iron weapons in the Age of Sorrows would be cold-forged. Incomparable Body Arsenal is almost certainly not cold-forged; it's more Essence-forged, which is going to lack the proper ritual preparation that turns natural iron into cold-forged iron.

That said, cold-forged iron does remain inferior to steel. The houserule we used when it came up was that cold-forged iron loses 1 accuracy and defense due to its weight and poor balance. - FrivYeti, who had years of this as a Changeling player

Molikai is right in that it must be Essence 3, though as GreenLantern says the elemental isn't hurt, so they can be 'reused', for at least the duration of their summoning, and I imagine it would not be that hard for Lookshy to come to some kind of arrangement with the local Elemental Courts to supply them with elementals without even needing to summon. I suspect what the Outcaste book is actually suffering from is being slightly dated. The original Book of 3 Circles had no requirement for an elemental, merely a 'large quantity of the element', which makes things much easier. The biggest issue with the many many Elementally Empowered artifacts required is that such things don't last forever - I guess Earth and Wood items will last a goodly long time, mind (But Earth does not self-heating cooking pots make) - and their production has a hard limit of 1 item per sorcerer per day (due to the Dawn - Noon ritual requirement) means that rather than being everyman items like in the book, their issue and use is restricted to officers and small elite units. - Kraken